In Gennesaret

Y’all, God has blessed me with really good people in my life. People who love me, support me, appreciate me, and go out of their way for me. The gifts and kind words and all-day-long singing I received on my birthday last week were small examples of that. Seriously, friends . . . how do I deserve you? So many good people. So, I really shouldn’t give as much attention as I do to the one exception, right? One person. There’s just this one person . They are a constant burr in my saddle these days. They make my life harder – and if this isn’t intentional on their part, or at least passive aggressive, it is most certainly selfish. In almost everything they do, they seem to communicate a lack of respect for me.  It’s only one person. Why do I let this one person affect me so much? We’ve all got our baggage, you know. I’ve shared some of mine before here in this blog. One particular parcel I tote around unseen is an unspoken message I’ve heard in my heart since childhood – parti...

Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. ( Matthew 11:29 in The Message) I taught a breakout session at my school’s Parent Conference last week about discipling our children. (Read that closely: not "disciplining". Discipling. ) One of my primary points was that discipling is not teaching. We disciple not through words but through actions – through living life together. When Jesus called his disciples, he didn’t say, “Come – have a seat. Listen to what I have to say.” He said, “Follow me.” When he told them to love each other, he didn’t give them a definition to write down and recite back to him later. He said, “Love each other the way I have loved you.” We learn more by example than we learn by words – from our parents and from our Lord. Walk with me . . . work with me . . . being a disciple of Jesus involves with-ness. It’s concerned with acting more than it is with knowing. But those last words – the unforced rhythm...

I recently read The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Being a director and a playwright, I’ve felt a bit of shame at my ignorance of this classic playwright and his works. I have actually seen this particular work of his performed . . . although I don’t remember anything about it (other than the fabulous set designed by my friend Alfy, which was the reason for my attendance). So, I ordered a copy of the play with an Amazon gift card I got at the end of the school year. And I wasn’t impressed. I felt the same way when I finished a long-drawn-out reading of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina this summer. I will say that I at least knew what was going on most of the time in that novel; the play I had a hard time following at all. I appreciated the tragedy of Anna’s end and the joy of Levin’s enlightenment . . . but the journey to get to those moments was laborious. The Brothers Karamazov had a similar effect on me. Yay for the occasional glorious mountaintops . . . ugh for the long, winding ...